Unlikely Outlaw

JAZZY. Dual-engine combinations are nearly as old as drag racing. Even before rail jobs were referred to as dragsters, innovative pioneers correctly calculated that dual powerplants could be twice as nice. Twin-engine motorcycles were regular Top Eliminator winners in the early ’50s, beating the best flathead-powered four-wheelers. In 1955, Lloyd Scott used one-each Olds and Cadillac V8 to break the 150-mph barrier and set low e.t. (10.48 seconds) at the inaugural NHRA Nationals. Two years later, the banishment of fuels other than pump gasoline inspired a nationwide trend toward the twice-motored slingshots that dominated NHRA-legal competition during the fuel ban (1957-1963). Jack Chrisman’s world-championship Howard’s Cams Special of 1961 is but one famous example of the state of the art.

2/11The chassis may look like it was fabbed from rectangular tubing, but Jazzy had 12-gauge steel bent into a C shape, which he cut and welded into the shape he wanted. Then he disassembled the car and boxed the inside of the rails. Strong and lighter than tubing, the fronts of these rails were tapered to eliminate any extra weight. A basic dropped axle and transverse spring sum up the front suspension.

What set Jazzy Jim Nelson’s aptly named Outlaw apart was its owner’s refusal to give up nitromethane and the Ford flathead that had made the colorful Californian’s feared Fiat fuel coupe the world’s quickest drag car (9.10 seconds) of 1955. Rather than join the many defectors to gas-burning overheads, Jazzy elected to stick with nitro, flatheads, and the few unsanctioned, “outlaw” strips that ignored the fuel ban. However, to remain competitive, he recognized the need for a longer chassis and greater displacement than the Fiat’s poked-’n’-stroked (33⁄8 x 41⁄8 inches) Flatmotor provided. His solution was a twin-engine slingshot.

Part restoration and part re-creation, the car pictured here was put together during the last decade by Chuck Sarno, as a tribute to his childhood hero. He used many of the same components that Jazzy installed in 1957, some of which went all the way to the East Coast before returning home to California a half a century later, thanks to another Jazzy fan on the opposite end of the continent. How that happened is perhaps the strangest part of this story, as we’ll soon see.

As a guy focused on success and accustomed to winning, Jazzy might’ve added the second powerplant even if the fuel ban hadn’t happened. He was smart and crafty, able to single-handedly execute in metal what he envisioned in his head. His sole reason for mounting the Mercury engines side by side was to obtain maximum traction, Chuck explains. Dragsters of the day weren’t very long, and getting any more weight in the rear of a slingshot chassis was impossible without fattening up the slingshotted driver. Had Jazzy placed one engine in front of the other, as many twin proponents did, he rightly figured the slingshot would’ve burned rubber for all 1,320 feet. As it was, the Outlaw churned smoke from its Bruce slicks most of the way down the track. This inability to hook up was at least partly responsible for the disappointing 9.6-second, 146-mph bests reported in HOT ROD’s Nov. ’57 feature spread.

Since power was so obviously abundant—guesstimated at “around 600,” according to HRM—we can only wonder why Nelson (who passed away in 2001) ultimately switched to a pair of bigger Oldsmobile overheads. Chuck merely remembers that the immediate result was an overweight, overpowered, and ill-handling piece “that scared the daylights out of Jazzy.” Frustrated, he sold the Outlaw to some racers Back East and backslid into his old nitromethane addiction, this time concentrating on the big Chryslers that were coming on strong with outlaw fuel racers. In 1959, Jazzy installed both his Hemi and himself into Jocko Johnson’s full-envelope, back-motored streamliner, instantly regaining his world’s-quickest status with a stunning blast of 8.35 seconds (178.21 mph) on Riverside Raceway’s “honest” clocks.

How the Outlaw fared in the hands of its second owners is unknown. Chuck’s research revealed that the chassis died an early death in someone’s yard, explaining that the water that Jazzy retained inside its main rails as coolant was never drained before the car was parked, accelerating the steel’s deterioration. Other pieces surfaced in various other race cars over the years, and Byron Duncey, the aforementioned Eastern Jazzy fan, kept track of several unique and critical components. Over time, three pallets of original Outlaw pieces arrived at Chuck and Carole Sarno’s house in Visalia, California.

Although it must have been daunting to see how much of the rest needed to be re-created, enough custom driveline items survived to make a reincarnation feasible. Chuck corresponded with historian Greg Sharp (another major Jazzy fan), who generously supplied photographs that Chuck enlarged and used in lieu of blueprints. Chuck knew that one of the original flatheads had gone to Jack Mendenhall but had blown up and was junked. Incredibly, its mate had been purchased and saved by Dan Holland, who agreed to sell. Another Merc block received the correct internal and external elements necessary to make this Outlaw virtually indistinguishable from its predecessor.

Seven years into his ambitious restoration/re-creation project, Chuck reluctantly abandoned plans to make both engines fully functional and cackle the beast, citing health and financial limitations. Now that he’s fulfilled his promises to Jazzy Nelson and Byron Duncey to rebuild and display the Outlaw, Chuck is considering offers and hoping that some future caretaker of his late friend’s last race car and lasting legacy will finish the job.